Wednesday 30 January 2013

Was Monday good news day?

A week ago on Monday was 'blue Monday', the day of the year when we were all meant to feel most depressed. For the construction industry though it seemed as if this Monday was more like 'golden Monday'. It was extraordinary to wake up to news which seemed to be all about creating construction work.
First there was the confirmation of the proposed route for the northern part of HS2, the high-speed rail line, although there will evidently be a lot of arguing about the route before this translates into real work.
Then there was the unrolling of the much-discussed Green Deal to the public, which should generate work at the smaller end of the market for approved installers.
And if architects, rightly, think that HS2 is too infrastructure based (although there will be new stations) and the Green Deal too small and trade based, then they can take heart that the embargo has, finally, been lifted on publicising Olympic work. OK this is too little too late, and of little benefit to many. And yes, there is plenty of bad news around with practices still going out of business, product manufacturers becoming insolvent, and the prospects for construction work looking gloomy overall. But how nice to have at least a little oasis of cheer. With gift horses so rare these days, we shouldn't look this one in the mouth.

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